When The Music's Over by Peter Robinson

 

Detective Superintendent Alan Bank's team is facing two cases.  His case involves the suspicion that a beloved comic and TV variety show host had molested and raped a series of young girls over the years, going back forty years.  Now a woman has come forward who is willing to testify and other women are starting to do the same.  The case is touchy with a rich, beloved man and hard to come by evidence so many years ago.  

DI Annie Cabbot's job is a recent murder.  A young girl was taken for a ride by a group of men.  She was drugged and raped then thrown out of the van to make her way home.  But she never got there.  The man she flagged down for help instead killed her.  Cabbot discovers that a group of men in the same town have targeted young women from the poorer classes and turned them into prostitutes.  This girl was one who was willing to do whatever it took to get out of that life.  

This is the twenty-third book in the Peter Robinson series.  Banks has been promoted and will only get the hardest cases from now on.  His team is also moving upward, gaining the promotions that experience and hard work bring.  The two cases are similar since they both focus on exploited young women brought against their will into worlds where murder is not rare.  This book is recommended for mystery readers.